People who appreciate small moments of happiness, laughter and joy through the course of each day tend to be happy people who are more likely to be resilient against adversity and more successful in jobs, relationships and health outcomes.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina reached this conclusion after a series of studies that required 86 participants to submit daily "emotion reports" that gauged their emotional status in detail over the course of the day. The study showed that happy people do not need to be Pollyannas or deny the upsetting parts of life. But these people have the ability to put greater stock in small, happy moments. Savoring these blips of pleasure in everyday life, the study found, elevates one's mood overall and leads to more resilience against negative events.
"This study shows that if happiness is something you want out of life, then focusing daily on the small moments and cultivating positive emotions is the way to go," said Barbara Fredrickson, the lead author of the study, in a news release. "Those small moments let positive emotions blossom, and that helps us become more open. That openness then helps us build resources that can help us rebound better from adversity and stress, ward off depression and continue to grow."
The key to focusing on micro-moments, Fredrickson said, is to set aside worries about the big picture.
"A lot of times we get so wrapped up in thinking about the future and the past that we are blind to the goodness we are steeped in already, whether it's the beauty outside the window or the kind things that people are doing for you. The better approach is to be open and flexible, to be appreciative of whatever good you do find in your daily circumstances, rather than focusing on the bigger questions, such as 'Will I be happy if I move to California?' or 'Will I be happy if I get married?' "
The study, published in the current issue of the journal Emotion, was co-authored by researchers at UC San Francisco, the University of Michigan,University of Pittsburgh and Cornell University. Fredrickson has written a book on her research titled, "Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity and Thrive," (Crown Publishing, 2009).
Our brains may empathize along racial lines, even if we report no such bias.
Observers shown video clips of subjects receiving painful stimuli showed increased brain activation in the areas associated with empathy and emotion when subjects shared the observer’s race, Chinese researchers reported in a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience on Wednesday.
The study is the first to use brain imaging technology to confirm subconscious in-group prejudice, a topic that has been investigated since the 1950s.
Perceiving others’ pain is an automatic reaction that activates the same neural circuit in the brain as the one that is activated during first-person pain. This kind of empathic response has been shown, in studies, to be stronger if there is a connection between individuals. For example, a 2002 study showed that white college students who read a passage involving a black or white man charged with a criminal act reported greater empathy for, and assigned more lenient punishments to, the white defendant.
In this study, from Peking University in Beijing, Chinese and Caucasian university participants watched video clips showing faces of Chinese and Caucasian models with neutral expressions receiving either a painful (needle penetration) or non-painful (Q-tip touch) stimulation on the cheek.
The participants were then asked to rate the amount of pain the model felt, as well as their own level of discomfort while watching the jabs.
Race had no effect on the survey responses by either Chinese or Caucasian observers. But the same was not true in their brains.
While participants watched the videos, researchers used functional MRI to scan what was going on inside their heads. The scans revealed increased activation in the brain regions that mediate the empathic neural response. But when the painful simulations were applied to subjects who shared a race with observers, the neural responses increased significantly more than when the ones being stuck with needles were of the other racial group.
The findings suggest that bias against those from other groups may exist at a fundamental level in the human mind, despite what self-reports reveal.
“If this is confirmed in future research, people then should be careful about their own behaviors during social interaction even though we intend to deal with in-group and out-group members equally well at the conscious level of the mind,” says coauthor Shihui Han, a professor at Peking University's Department of Psychology, in an e-mail.
The answer to your question may depend on which ear you ask. We tend to offer our right ear to speakers and are more likely to say yes to a request addressed into it, reported Italian researchers in a study published in the journal Naturwissenschaften.
Although knowledge of right-ear dominance is nothing new, how the results were generated in this study was: The scientists talked to strangers in nightclubs.
Right-ear preference is one of the best-known asymmetries in humans, transcending gender, ethnicity, age and right- or left-handedness. It is thought to be due to the right ear’s speediness in transmitting information to our brain’s left hemisphere, which dominates in processing language.
Until now, however, most studies on the phenomenon were performed in laboratory-controlled settings, not more “natural” environments.
To change this, researchers Daniele Marzoli and Luca Tommasi of the Gabriele d'Annunzio University in Italy gathered observational evidence from what they called an “ecological situation”: noisy Italian discotheques.
First, the researchers watched 286 clubbers while they were talking, and observed that 72% of all interactions happened on the listener’s right side.
Next, the researchers had a woman approach 80 men and 80 women, mumble a meaningless request and observe which ear the listener offered. (She then asked for a cigarette.)
Overall, 58% of the subjects lent their right ear, with females showing a significant preference for doing so. In this situation, when the people who were approached chose the ear they offered, the woman was just about as likely to get a cigarette regardless of which ear she spoke into.
In the final leg of the experiment, the woman went up to a person and chose which ear she spoke into. When this was done, the likelihood of the woman being given the cigarette doubled with requests that were spoken into the right ear: 34 of 88 clubbers offered a cigarette to an asker addressing the right
ear, and only 17 of 88 clubbers did the same when addressed on the
left.
Why should this be? It is thought that activation of the left and right brain hemispheres correspond with positive and negative judgments, respectively. This asymmetry is linked to two motivational systems: “approach” in the left and “avoidance” in the right.
The data, which suggest specialization of different sides of the brain for different emotions, are consistent with previous findings. For example, one study from 1991 found that subjects showed a better memory of arguments with which they agreed when the sentences were heard through the right ear, and better remembering of disagreements heard through their left ear.
However, the scientists caution, “Unequal distribution of sound sources in space, type of music played, [or] effect of alcohol intake” all may have had an effect on results.
"At this moment, thousands of people across North American are probably silently repeating positive statements to themselves. Students facing exams, cancer patients, speakers approaching lecterns, and individuals trying to lift their low self-esteem are repeating such phrases as, "I am a lovable person."
So write the authors of a new study that concludes that the self-esteem movement dating back to Norman Vincent Peale's 1952 bestseller, "The Power of Positive Thinking," may have gotten it all wrong.
Canadian researchers now say that among people with low self-esteem, focusing on or repeating a positive self-statement makes them feel worse than people with low self-esteem who did not repeat the statement or who focused on how the statement was both true and not true. People with high self-esteem who focused on a positive self-statement felt better than similar people who did not feed themselves positive messages -- but only modestly so. Thus, the researchers concluded, positive self-statements may backfire on the people who need them the most.
"When people with low self-esteem repeated the statement, "I'm a lovable person" or focused on ways in which this statement was true of them, neither their feelings about themselves nor their moods improved -- they got worse," the authors wrote. It may be more helpful for people to feed themselves positive statements involving specific attributes they know to be true. For example, "I select good gifts for people," rather than "I am a generous person."
Who would have thought it? The reality show "Survivor" actually demonstrates reality -- when it comes to friendship, at least.
While they didn't study the hit television show, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania conducted experiments on the motives behind human friendship. The prevailing theory is that humans build friendships in order to exchange goods and services, Penn psychologist Peter DeScioli, a co-author of the study, said in a news release. But that theory doesn't explain studies that show people usually don't keep tabs on the benefits they get from a friendship and will often help friends who are unable to repay them.
The new theory, called the Alliance Hypothesis for Human Friendship, argues that friendships form because of cognitive mechanisms aimed at creating alliances -- or ready-made support groups of people. Under this theory, how you rank your best friends is closely related to how they rank you. And friends tend to be valued according to who is the most helpful in settling conflicts and based on how many strong commitments they have to others.
"Friendships are about alliances," said psychologist Robert Kurzban, the other co-author of the study. "We live in a world where conflict can arise and allies must be in position beforehand. This new hypothesis takes into account how we value those alliances. In a way, one of the main predictors of friendships is the value of alliances. The value of an ally, or friend, drops with every additional alliance they must make, so the best alliance is one in which your ally ranks you above everyone else as well."
The researchers came to this conclusion by performing a series of question-and-answer studies in which participants ranked their closest friends in a number of ways. Friendship rankings were most strongly correlated with individuals' own perceived rank among their partners' other friends.
"In this hypothesis," Kurzban said, "it's not what you can do for me, it's how much you like me."
The study is published online in the journal PLoS One.
Girl talk apparently is good for the one's health, according to a new study. When women feel emotionally close to a girlfriend, levels of the hormone progesterone increase, helping to boost mood and alleviate stress.
The study, by researchers at the University of Michigan, examined progesterone levels in the saliva of 160 college students. The researchers measured progesterone levels and levels of the stress hormone cortisol and obtained information about menstrual cycles and any use of hormonal medications. The women were randomly assigned to partners and asked to perform a task designed to elicit feelings of emotional closeness or a task that was emotionally neutral. After the 20-minute talks the women played a computerized, cooperative game with their partners, then had their progesterone and cortisol sampled again.
The progesterone levels in the women who participated in the emotionally close task remained the same or increased while those in the emotionally neutral group tended to decline. In the study, progesterone was used as a marker for oxytocin, a hormone linked to relationship trust and bonding. Oxytocin, however, can only be measured through spinal fluid or brain scans.
A week later the participants played a computerized card game with their partners again, had their saliva tested and were also asked how willing they would be to risk their lives for their partners. The study found that increased progesterone levels predicted a willingness to say they would risk their lives for their partners.
The study supports a concept in evolution that is gaining momentum -- that the hormonal basis of social bonds enables people to suppress self-interests when necessary to promote the well-being of another person. The research also helps explain why social contact appears to lead to improved health.
"Most of the hormones involved in bonding and helping behavior lead to reductions in stress and anxiety in both humans and other animals," the lead author of the paper, Stephanie Brown, said in a news release. "Now we see that higher levels of progesterone may be part of the underlying physiological basis for these effects."
She writes: "In recent years Adderall and Ritalin, another stimulant, have been adopted as cognitive enhancers: drugs that high-functioning, overcommitted people take to become higher-functioning and more overcommitted."
She tells her story in some part through a recent Harvard graduate named Alex. He makes a compelling case for what can be accomplished with a little help.
Photo: Ritalin -- the little helper for people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and overworked, over-stressed students -- is going mainstream.
Bad habits and willpower must be on a lot of minds these days. That's great -- I'm all for other people trying to break their bad habits and develop willpower.
In today's Health section, there's Habits can be broken, but not forgotten. Writer Karen Ravn warns us, somewhat harshly: "Chances are, you have a few habits you wish you didn't have, and quite possibly you've tried (and tried and tried) to break them. Scientists are learning why you may have failed (and failed and failed). In fact, they now know that once you have a habit, you can never really unlearn it."
She's a comfort. No, truly. Because then she advises us in Tips on breaking bad habits how to, if not unlearn bad habits, at least not to be controlled by them.
My favorite is the "if-then" plan. Essentially, if you have a specific negative thought, then you perform a specific act to help overcome it. Food cravings and tennis game performances are used as examples. You should try it. Let me know if it works.
And today, NPR weighed in as well. (The media ... we really only want what's best for everyone.)
In Your Health: Willpower: A Game of Strategy, Alix Spiegel offers up a story involving a fascinating experiment with marshmallows or cookies and 4-year-olds possessing varying degrees -- none of them large -- of self-control.
In the study, the researcher told the kids, before leaving the room, that they could have a nearby treat right away or wait until he got back and have two treats. Many succumbed immediately. Others attempted to distract themselves, then succumbed. And we all know which type of 4-year-old we would have been.
Distraction is fine and can work, but the researcher also tried to get the children to think of the way they thought about the treat. The story says: "So, for example, to help the children resist the treat, before leaving the room Mischel told the kids to imagine the treat in front of them differently. 'I told them to think about those marshmallows as if they were just cotton puffs, or clouds. Those instructions to the 4-year-old had a dramatic effect on her ability to wait for the thing that she couldn't wait for before.'"
Apparently 4-year-olds have much to teach us all.
-- Tami Dennis
Photo: They're not melt-in-your-mouth hazelnut chocolate Linzer cookies; they're just round, um, cardboard-y things. Really.
Police officers who are adept at multi-tasking are less likely to shoot an unarmed person when faced with a potentially dangerous, split-second decision, according to a new study.
The study, conducted at Georgia State University, involved 24 urban police officers who completed a test of working memory capacity and then watched a video of an officer-involved shooting that resulted in the death of the officer. The officers' stress levels and emotions were assessed based on heart rate and sweat measurements. Following the video, the officers participated in a computer-based simulation during which they were required to make sudden decisions on whether to shoot or not shoot someone. Officers then pressed either a "shoot" or "don't shoot" button.
The study revealed that officers with lower levels of working memory capacity were more likely to shoot unarmed people. Officers who had higher levels of working memory seemed more buffered from emotional stress when making shooting decisions. "People with a higher capacity [for memory] are able to keep more things 'in play' at one time," said Heather Kleider, a co-author of the study, in a news release.
Previous studies on how officers make decisions to shoot have focused on ethnicity, stereotypes or neighborhood crime rates. But this study suggests that individual cognitive characteristics like memory and impulse control could be important in understanding and preventing unnecessary shootings. Psychologists say they don't know if police officers can be trained to have better working memory. They also want to study whether years of experience on the job influences shooting decisions.
The study will be published later this year in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology.
Most marriage advice includes this nugget of wisdom: Don't expect the romance to last. Passion fades and couples are left with a relationship best described as a "warm afterglow."
But a new study finds this commonly held assumption just isn't true. Couples can maintain the romance -- defined as intensity, engagement and sexual chemistry -- in long-term relationships. The findings of the study, published in the March issue of the Review of General Psychology, could help people strive for more satisfying long-term relationships and even persuade some jaded single people to give love a try. "The assumption that time kills romantic love may undermine people's decisions even to enter into marriages," the authors wrote.
The paper is an analysis of 25 studies on relationship satisfaction involving more than 6,000 people in short- and long-term relationships. The researchers also looked at 17 studies of young adults in short-term relationships and 10 long-term studies of middle-aged couples who were married for 10 years or more. They concluded that people mistakenly believe that romantic love and passion are the same thing. While the two types of relationships do share some characteristics, passionate love also includes an element of obsession.
"Romantic love has the intensity, engagement and sexual chemistry that passionate love has, minus the obsessive component," the lead author of the paper, Bianca P. Acevedo, said in a news release. "Passionate or obsessive love includes feelings of uncertainty and anxiety. This kind of love helps drive the shorter relationships but not the longer ones."
The danger in acknowledging that romance can last, the authors note, is that couples who believe their loving companionship type of relationship is good enough might realize they're missing some sizzle. The study found that couples who reported greater romantic love were more satisfied than those who reported companionship-like love. Companionship-like love may be an unnecessary compromise in a relationship, said Acevedo, of UC Santa Barbara.
"Couples should strive for love with all the trimmings," she said. "And couples who've been together a long time and wish to get back their romantic edge should know it is an attainable goal that, like most good things in life, requires energy and devotion."
In other words, book that Caribbean cruise or call Dr. Phil.
-- Shari Roan
Photo: A Lilly Pulitzer design entitled "Love You Too Much." Credit: Lilly Pulitzer
Tami Dennis, who takes the word "skeptic" to previously uncharted territory, is the Times' Health and Science editor. She's adamant that pitches promoting awareness days, weeks or months are, by their nature, non-stories. And, because she's an adult, she refuses to use words like "veggies," "tummy" and "yummy."
Rosie Mestel, deputy Health and Science editor, studied genetics before abandoning flies, fungi and DNA for health/medical writing. Her hero is the biologist Ernst Haeckel, whose jellyfish paintings inspired snazzy chandeliers. Her favorite toast-spread is Marmite, a British delicacy made of yeast extract. Her least-favorite word is "millenniums."
Melissa Healy is a staff writer for the Health section reporting from Washington D.C. Healy's a veteran of The Times' National staff, having covered the Pentagon, Congress, poverty and social welfare, the environment, and the White House before shifting to Health in 2003. She writes frequently about mental health and human behavior, about federal health policy, prescription medication and ethics in medicine. More wonk than wellness freak, Healy chooses to believe in the health benefits of coffee and wine, and considers water a better work-out medium than beverage.
Karen Kaplan covers genetics, stem cells and cloning. She and colleague Thomas H. Maugh II comprise about 25% of the unofficial MIT-Alumni-in-Journalism Club, and she is proud to have taken more math (5) than English (0) courses in college. Her contributions to Booster Shots will, she hopes, appear more frequently than postings to her mommy blog.
Thomas H. Maugh II has been a science and medical writer at the Times for 23 years. Before that, he was on the staff of the journal Science for 13 years.
He has bachelor's degrees in English and chemistry from MIT and a doctorate in chemistry from UC Santa Barbara.
After a brief stint as a sports writer, Shari Roan turned to health journalism and has covered the topic for The Times for 18 years. She is the author of three books and the mother of two daughters, both teenagers who refer to her as a "health freak." She likes to jog, watch baseball and is very happy that dark chocolate contains some health benefit.
Jeannine Stein writes about fitness, sports medicine and obesity for the Health section. She’s a gym rat from way back and never met an elliptical trainer she didn’t like. Well, maybe one or two. She tempers exercise with a steady diet of reality television because she believes it’s all about balance.
